In an effort to promote discussion on key issues during the current election period, we are giving candidates the opportunity to answer a number of questions that may be of interest to local voters.
Everyone receives the same questions, and their answers are presented with minimal editing for format purposes only.
Here is the candidate profile for Belleville Council Candidate Ward One (Urban) Paul Bell.
Election day is October 26th.
First and Last Name
Paul Bell
What position are you seeking in the upcoming municipal election on October 26?
Councillor, Ward 1 Belleville
Question 1 – Why are you running and what are your main priorities if elected/re-elected?
Why are we leaving provincial money on the table and suffering inadequate public transit? Why is Council bypassing the Planning Committee to approve R3 (high-density) developments without so much as a single Impact Assessment, inviting basement flooding, massive costs and legal delays before shovels touch the ground? We’re better than this. The new Council must make course-corrections. When we embrace growth and we respect legacy, what we already own, Belleville will thrive. I want to be part of the new Council that sets us on the right track. Transit & The Gas Tax Hack: Our transit system is failing the people who need it most and who we most need to utilize it. Transit is funded by provincial monies more than the farebox. A full 70% of Ontario Gas Tax Fund monies are distributed based strictly on ridership metrics. To unlock these funds, we must increase ridership. The Municipality Hack: Kingston, Guelph, and several other Ontario municipalities offer 33–50% fare relief to low-income families. This drives drastic ridership increases, automatically unlocking a larger provincial funding slice and resulting in perpetually improving transit infrastructure for everyone (more buses, better routes, and safer, better-lit stops). Accessible Tech: While digitization, apps, and QR codes are world-class, they can be restrictive. We still read printed labels at the grocers; we can restore printed bus schedules and traditional payment methods to complement new technology. The Target Canada Analogy (The Danger of Rushed Cash): Bad planning creates zero jobs or housing. A decade ago, I had a great job as a painting supervisor for a company that builds big-box stores, supervising local hires. We were set to build six new Target stores nationwide until the morning radio announced that Target Canada had gone under due to fatal corporate misjudgments. I couldn’t paint stores that will never be built. I, along with several others, was graciously phased out over the following weeks. The outgoing Council is setting us up for similar failures by chasing short-term federal stimulus like the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF). HAF cash is tied to rapid targets decided in Ottawa. This creates a reckless urgency to bypass the Planning Committee, approve projects unvetted, and name the developer just to lay hands on the stimulus cash. The developer takes around 20% off the top and provides the necessary Impact Assessments themselves. It is a blind gamble with our subterranean infrastructure. The Too-Obvious Remedy: Government interest in getting housing built doesn’t evaporate with an arbitrary deadline. Several Canadian municipalities (Loyalist Township/Ottawa) have successfully requested that HAF terms be rewritten to ensure local Planning Committee due diligence happens. The government routinely agrees to this condition, and those projects commence successfully. It’s that simple. Ending Developer Secrecy & Closed-Door Rulings: Currently, residents must endure a costly, frustrating Freedom of Information process just to examine a hydrogeological assessment, Stormwater Management, or Sewer Capacity Report. There should be no secrecy when homeowners want to examine threats to their basements, local greenspaces, or emergency response times. Every Impact Assessment received by the Planning Committee should be immediately available through a free, open online portal. We must end the culture of closed-door dealings. This past August, the Integrity Commissioner ruled Council broke provincial open-meeting laws when they met behind closed doors to give away the land at 31 South John Street to a private developer for $0. In September, the Integrity Commissioner ruled the DBIA had broken those same open-meeting laws systemically for the previous ten months. There is zero possibility that illegal closed-door dealings are in the city’s best interests.
Question 2 – How do you balance budgetary restraint with continuing increases in many areas of the municipal budget?
The Payroll Standard: If a private business fails, the lights go out. City Hall must adopt better discipline. Transit Cash Left on the Table: City Hall is currently leaving free provincial transit cash on the table out of sheer bureaucratic laziness. The $5.5 Million West Hill Sewer Risk: Bypassing the Planning Committee to approve a high-density development in West Hill might result in $5.5 Million in brand-new sewers being torn up and replaced. Asset Fire-Sale: Council is designating properties as surplus and selling, or giving them away, at a fire-sale pace. We can only sell an asset once. None of these practices speak to balancing anything. Balance is achieved when we stop trying to look clever and focus on actually being clever.
Question 3 – Infrastructure projects are a huge strain on local budgets, especially when it comes to water/wastewater. How can we address/reduce these costs moving forward and mitigate the impact for ratepayers/taxpayers?
Due Diligence Protects the Wallet: Secrecy and haste are the most expensive liabilities a city can buy. When Council fast-tracks developments and bypasses our local Planning Committee to chase short-term stimulus cash, they ignore strict engineering scrutiny. If our sub-surface infrastructure fails, taxpayers get stuck with a multi-million-dollar repair bill. The natural catchment gamble at 41 Octavia is a direct warning of the structural remediation costs that can threaten neighborhood foundations. Standard home insurance does not cover gradual foundation shifting or unmanaged surface flooding, meaning these unvetted high-density approvals risk making local homes entirely uninsurable for flood and water damage. In 2014, Council appealed to the federal and provincial governments for emergency funding to replace the over-100-year-old sewers on Alexander Street. When the funding arrived, in 2021, all $3.68 Million was redirected to more politically expedient projects. Albeit, that was past Councils but the example speaks to systemic or institutional whimsey. Free Risk Management via Open Data: To eliminate hidden flooding risks and shield taxpayers from emergency infrastructure hikes, I will introduce a motion requiring that every Hydrogeological Assessment, Sewer Capacity Study, and Stormwater Management Report received by the Planning Committee be automatically published to a free, open online portal. This costs the city nothing, but allows independent experts and residents to flag capacity overburdens. We mitigate infrastructure strain, not by cutting corners, but by enforcing absolute transparency to ensure developers prove their builds won’t break our water and wastewater grids before they are approved.
Question 4 – What measures can the municipality take to address the issues of affordability and housing security?
Affordability; buttressing our local economy: Earlier in this questionnaire I described the lucrative course-corrections the new Council can make to rapidly and perpetually improve our transit infrastructure. Life becomes significantly more affordable and accessible when reliable bus routes and connections replace the need to drive. Mobilizing a frustrated segment of the workforce stimulates the local economy like nothing else can. All of this can be accomplished by unlocking provincial funding. Housing security; when vendors and landlords must compete for buyers and tenants, affordability and housing security follows: The city can do a great deal to inspire organic growth. Upgrade our subterranean and surface infrastructure, roads, sewers, greenspaces, transit. That’s how security, housing and economic are achieved. Currently, there are several government stimulus programs intended to help municipalities address the urgent need for new housing. If these monies are deployed sensibly, housing supply can increase rapidly and successfully. I’ve stressed the dangers to new housing builds when Council tries to fast-track, bypassing our local Planning Committee, risking project failure or neighbourhood devastation. All under the pretense that such haste is necessary to secure government stimulus money. It is not. We want and need new builds. We need new builds to serve our community, not paymasters in Ottawa or Queen’s Park. We need approved builds to actually happen, not stall or halt entirely over legal or engineering oversights. Loyalist Township and Ottawa addressed this concern properly, so should Belleville. Those municipalities requested, and received, new terms to receive Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) stimulus on condition that proposed new developments are FIRST approved by their Planning Committees. There is no better, or simpler way to ensure symmetry between growth and our infrastructure capacity to absorb new builds. ALTO: The Threat from Above. Belleville is designated to become “fly-over” country. That is not hyperbole, it is the same dynamic that remapped Canada in the 1800s, defining success and failure by where the trains pulled in. The proposed ALTO High-Speed Rail mega-project will bypass Belleville and scar the regional landscape. Isolating our growing urban city from major cities in Eastern Canada, as ALTO intends to do, is an act of deliberate sabotage to our local economy. The outgoing Council voted unanimously to pass Councillor Kathryn Brown’s solid Motion, ensuring that no city official can negotiate behind closed doors with ALTO representatives and that the city use every code, bylaw and enforcement strategy to stall and discourage ALTO progress. Council cannot stop ALTO on its own. Belleville requires GO Train service. Nothing better illustrates the need for Belleville to be connected to major cities than the “fly-over” designation signaled by the ALTO High Speed Rail mega-project. Belleville has the yard space and an existing station structure that could easily be upgraded to serve as a GO Train station. So long as the political will exists, VIA is likely to commit to accommodating the track use. The federal government is in no position to oppose funding their portion of the transportation initiative. We’re trying to mitigate foreseeable isolation caused by the mega-project they’re determined to impose over us. Provincial approval to extend the GO Train to include Belleville should be automatic. It is the mandate of Metrolinx to connect Ontario communities. The new Council can accomplish a great deal towards affordability and housing security. To protect it, we require GO TRAIN service.
Question 5 – Homelessness has become a major issue for most local communities. What would you do to address this issue and what needs to happen to have a meaningful impact?
Homelessness is a national crisis. Municipalities like Belleville did not cause this crisis, nor can we remedy it. We are compassionate. We understand the terror of homelessness and the tragedy of severe addiction that are often comorbid. Our compassion is evidenced in the efforts of private citizens who serve regular meals and provide other meaningful help. Often, these decent souls have better successes than the agencies tasked with the overwhelming responsibility. Who’s going to pay for it? Belleville is now a HART Hub. This means that agencies throughout the region direct vulnerable people to Belleville expecting shelter that does not exist, treatments that are simply beyond our means. If this arrangement is to succeed, we require massive, continuous funding from the provincial and federal governments. If massive, continuous funding is not received, regretfully, we must sever our failed obligation to the region. Making promises that we cannot keep is unfair to taxpayers and cruel to vulnerable, homeless people. The new council will be sworn in mid-November. There will be no grace period. As winter descends, the homelessness crisis becomes deadlier. The new Council must ensure emergency zoning approvals or temporary use permits for safe, winter warming extensions are fast-tracked in days, not months. In coordination with Hastings County, the new council must ensure that every dollar of emergency funding goes directly to frontline aid; operational beds, not steering committees and reports.
Question 6 – What message do you want the voter to know about you and your campaign and your priorities for the next four years?
The Beautiful Basics: Our Parks Department is among the finest in Canada. It won’t require massive spending to elevate the beauty and utility of our smaller park, playground and greenspace infrastructure to complement their magnificent floral displays. Upgrade our roads and sewers. Unlock provincial funding to improve transit and stimulate our local economy and culture. Renegotiate Housing Accelerator Fund terms so that Belleville’s future is determined in Belleville; to ensure harmony between urban growth and our ability to absorb it. Take care of what we already own. Safer streets: Council has no authority to direct policing but there’s more to public safety than law enforcement. There are several factors making us less safe. The homelessness crisis, specifically those souls, damaged by addiction mustn’t be scapegoated. Still, the risk is credible and extremely visible. HART Hub designation must be renegotiated. Regardless of socio-economic times, along with urban growth comes increases in property crimes and assaults. Given the staggering results I’m about to cite, it would be negligent for the new Council not to prioritize action: Cardiff, UK achieved a 40% reduction in violent crime through anonymous data reorganization. Emergency Rooms shared data about where assaults occurred, the city identified the dangerous areas and improved lighting, bus-route connections and cleared blind spots in public corridors. Glascow and Boston achieved similar successes using similar data to advise infrastructure upgrades. Both cities went further, focusing property code enforcement in the troubled areas. All of these tools are available to Belleville Council. Belleville requires GO Train service. I unpacked the reason for urgency and the mechanics that make now the time, it bears repeating. The ALTO High Speed Rail mega-project is an existential threat to the city, to the region. The proposed route through the Moira and her tributaries would cause unthinkable damage to our ecology, even our water tables. More likely seems a route through the 401 corridor. Either way, Belleville becomes “fly-over” country. We will lose families and businesses until we are unrecognizable and unimportant. Securing GO Train service to Belleville, once a lofty fascination, is now a priority. There are fine candidates on the Ward 1 ballot. We all have grand ideas that we’d like to see happen. With a few impactful course-corrections, taking care of the basics, those visions can be realized. I would love to endorse or help in any way advance another Councillor’s inspired Motion; certain we were poised for success. As a working Canadian artist, I know that culture is a powerful economic driver when we build annual public events. We must treat arts as essential community infrastructure by launching accessible, city-wide initiatives. I can’t fairly say that my pet concepts qualify as a priorities. Upgraded public transit, pristine, accessible park and playground greenspace infrastructure and massive tourism from the GO Train inspire my visions. I share this in the spirit of telling voters something about me, besides my passion for due diligence and the beautiful basics. I envision an annual Poetry Slam-Spoken Word-Drum Circle Festival, marshalled by Ontario’s Poet Laureate, partnering with our Tyendinaga neighbours and utilizing our neighborhood parks and transit links. A weekend event, performances at the Empire Theatre and community theatres, a Sunday pow-wow… Our hospitality sector would rise to such an occasion. We all would. CIBC Place needs a second tenant. Our contract with the Senators forbids another hockey tenant but that’s up for renewal in 2029-30. Currently, our 4,400-seating capacity is too small for the PWHL (Women’s pro hockey) but there’s a genuine chance that the league may expand into smaller venues. I’d like to negotiate a PWHL clause into the Senators five-year extension in case we can land a PWHL team for 2030-31 and beyond. Women’s pro hockey would succeed in Belleville. Lacrosse is Canada’s national sport and it belongs to First Nations people. An NLL expansion team, majority-owned by Tyendinaga would be an instant, massive success at CIBC Place. The marketing potential of a Mohawk-owned pro lacrosse team is off the charts. Global recognition. The NLL season runs during the winter and spring, an ideal schedule to share arena dates and corporate suites without directly cannibalizing the Senators’ core calendar. In closing, thank you for reading my responses and hopefully, considering my candidacy. There is no substitute for an informed, engaged electorate. Ward 1 residents have the chance to send a fine team to City Hall. We’re having a fine election. Let’s have a spectacular voter turnout! Belleville deserves the best Council, period.
